The clash with the Ever-Flame Mansion had turned out to be far easier than Sylvia had anticipated.
Mainly because Mei was treating them with absolute, dead-seriousness.
Short of actually unsheathing her blade, she was focusing with the exact same intensity she usually reserved for her sparring sessions with Sylvia.
With a single, blinding flash of a sheathed blade, the violent gales from the strike completely snuffed out the roaring fires consuming the grand hall.
The enemies surging from all directions didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell. Even Constance, who barely managed to avoid being blown away entirely, found herself utterly incapable of closing the distance.
With just that one stroke, the entire hall was cleared.
No, to put it more accurately, the entire palace had simply vanished from existence.
Only Duke Inferno himself and his four children remained, narrowly escaping instant death on the spot.
This left Sylvia, who had been fully prepared to jump into the fray, standing there with her sword half-drawn, looking around in utter bewilderment.
If your single strike puts everyone on their backs, what am I supposed to do?
Sylvia couldn't help but fall into a daze, wondering what the point of her even tagging along on this trip was.
It wasn't that Ifrit was weak.
The moment he had unleashed his attack just a second ago, the aura bursting from him was certainly formidable enough to earn him the title of a powerful Pathstrider.
He was easily the type who could pin down a Doomsday Beast and give it a good thrashing. Add to that his four children, each possessing distinctly different abilities, and it would have been a real gamble.
Given the complete lack of prior intelligence, if Sylvia had been here alone, it was hard to say whether she could have successfully suppressed them all.
She truly hadn't expected Mei to unleash such a devastatingly serious strike without even drawing her sword.
Surveying the pathetic state of the Ever-Flame Mansion, Sylvia lowered her longsword, letting her hand rest loosely by her side.
"Mei... did you really have to go that hard just now?"
Under normal circumstances, Mei wouldn't explode with power like this. She likely would have left Duke Inferno for Sylvia to handle. Sylvia had fully prepared herself for exactly that scenario.
Yet, this was the result.
To Sylvia's eyes, it was glaringly obvious that Mei had held nothing back in that strike. If it weren't for the need to preserve that music box, the flash of her blade probably would have cleaved even deeper.
But even with that restraint—
Duke Inferno had taken a direct hit to the chest and was barely managing to prop himself up on the floor. As for the others? They were all sprawled out, completely incapacitated. They hadn't even lasted a single exchange against Mei.
"Yes," Mei replied, giving a slight, quiet nod.
Though in truth, that strike hadn't even approached her true limit.
Because of Sylvia, Mei's recent explorations into the Nihility had become increasingly bold, and her strength had actually progressed quite a bit. Coupled with the gradual return of her scattered memories, her prowess even without drawing her blade had grown significantly.
She just hadn't shown the full extent of this boundary to Sylvia yet.
After all, Mei was not one to flaunt her power. Until Sylvia truly touched upon the level of an Emanator herself, Mei had no intention of letting her see the absolute ceiling of her strength.
Clack... clack...
Grip tight on her sheathed weapon, Mei walked toward Duke Inferno, her footsteps measured and steady. Sylvia naturally followed close behind.
It seemed Mei wanted to take center stage today, so Sylvia had no intention of stealing her thunder.
"Damn it—! Old man!"
Amid strained struggles and furious shouts, a heavy iron hammer wrapped in chains swung wildly through the air, hurtling straight down toward Mei's head!
Clang—!!
A crimson longsword, equally overflowing with blazing fire, intercepted it from the flank with lightning speed, deflecting the heavy hammer away.
Suddenly, the crisp notes of a stringed instrument rang out. A tragic melody saturated with blood and fire manifested as invisible blades, slicing inward from all directions. Simultaneously, a puppet bound by threads lunged forward alongside flickering, eerie blue flames.
But the four heavily injured children, even while draining the very last of their lifeforce to launch this assault, could not breach Sylvia's defense.
The grating music was instantly disrupted by the echoing song humming within Sylvia's greatsword.
The thread-bound puppet was caught by its own strings, ruthlessly pinned face-down into the rubble. As for the illusions conjured by the phantom fire, they stood completely exposed beneath Sylvia's piercing gaze.
A chaotic, lawless surge of Destruction energy erupted from her longsword, violently shattering the encroaching flames and forcing Constance to a dead halt.
Mei acted as though the chaotic ambush around her didn't even exist, continuing her steady, unhurried advance toward the Duke.
Seeing Sylvia step into the fight, Duke Inferno threw his head back and laughed uproariously.
"Hahaha—! So the rumors were true! A Lord Ravager reduced to a captive, nothing more than a spark manipulated by another's hand! What a pity, little girl. You cannot even manifest a fraction of the true grandeur of the Destruction!"
Ifrit laughed loudly, his voice a mix of awe and profound sighing.
To seal the power of a Lord Ravager for personal use, yet fail so utterly to bring forth the true, terrifying majesty of the Destruction…
For a Lord Ravager to fall to such a ridiculous and pitiable state, Duke Inferno found it both tragic and pathetic.
To spend a lifetime practicing the path of ruin, only to be denied even the choice of one's own destructive end, ending up a mere prisoner.
However, the moment Mei heard Duke Inferno's mockery directed at Sylvia, her killing intent spiked violently. In a split second, it dragged all five members of the Ever-Flame Mansion into a suffocating, absolute void of malice.
Duke Inferno's laughter cut off instantly.
"I see... I see now... From the very moment I uttered her name, today's end was already set in stone..."
Witnessing Mei's reaction, Duke Inferno realized exactly how he had provoked such relentless, absolute hostility from this supreme powerhouse.
Clutching his chest, the Duke held up the music box with his other hand, looking straight into Mei's eyes. As for his four children, they were still breathing, but that was about it.
The previous round of attacks had completely drained what little strength they had left. Having been thoroughly shut down by Sylvia, they now lacked even the strength to resist.
"Fire Demon Ifrit... You have spent your life enacting destruction. Did you ever foresee today's conclusion?"
Mei raised her sheathed blade, pointing it directly at Ifrit, her voice carrying a chilling, calm malice. She had no intention of letting this group walk away. She hadn't from the very beginning.
The only reason she hadn't obliterated everyone with her first strike was simply to prevent the music box from being accidentally destroyed in the crossfire.
Though the device was specially crafted, it was nowhere near as durable as the walls of the Astral Express. A slight lapse in control, and it truly would have turned to ash under her blade's aura.
Hearing Mei's interrogation, Ifrit instead offered up the music box in his hand with surprising composure.
"Galaxy Ranger, you cannot comprehend. We come from the fire, born of the flames. We spread, we burn, we destroy, until the fresh fuel is spent and nothing remains but a bed of dead ash."
"..."
Sylvia reached out, using a thread of energy to hook the music box, pulling it cleanly into her own hand.
Yet, Ifrit's voice did not cease.
"To burn is the life of a fire demon—the beginning and the end. We are born towards death, living only to fulfill a single profile of universal truth: all things are created for destruction."
Mei cast a brief glance toward the others. "Your companions don't seem to share your sentiment. They were trying to create an opening for you to escape."
"They are my children, embers that have yet to reach white-hot intensity. They are still young, I will not blame them."
With those words, Duke Inferno braced himself heavily against his cane. Forcing his flames to flare up one last time, he dragged his body up from the ground to stand tall.
"My fire has grown dim, but my children will still bring purgatory to that planet of festivities. Therefore, before that happens, I must stand before you—draw your blade, Emanator."
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL